An artist gave up winning a prestigious photo competition, winning it with an image created with the help of AI
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Berlin-based artist Boris Eldagsen became one of the winners of this year’s Sony World Photography Awards, having submitted a work created with the help of artificial intelligence. His victory caused controversy, so Eldagsen refused the prize. Read UP.Kultura in Telegram A German submitted an image called The Electrician to the photo contest held annually by the World Photography Organization. The picture depicts two women, allegedly taken during the early days of the invention of photography technology. It was featured in the Creativity category, PetaPixel reports. This work is part of a series called Pseudomnesia: Fake Memories that Eldagsen has been working on since 2022. The picture depicts two women, allegedly taken during the era of the invention of photography. Photo: Boris Eldagsen “Pseudomnesia is a Latin term that means pseudo-memory, a false memory, for example, a false memory of events that never happened,” the artist writes on the page of this project and adds that he created the image using image generators with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “Using the visual language of the 1940s, Boris Eldagsen creates his images as false memories of a past that never existed, that no one photographed,” the site says. In the end, the judges selected Eldagsen’s work for the shortlist, and then named him the winner in his category. It was announced on March 14. “I am very happy to have won the creative category of the Sony World Photography Awards 2023 / Open Competition / Single Image. I have been photographing since 1989 and engaged in photomedia art since 2000. After two decades of photography, my artistic focus shifted to exploring the creative possibilities of generators artificial intelligence,” he responded to his victory. Boris Eldagsen at the exhibition of the winners of the Sony World Photography Awards And although Eldagsen says that he calls his works “images” and not “photographs” because they are created synthetically, fellow photographers reacted to his victory with discussions. Some of them complained that the work, created without a camera and light, was able to receive the main photo award, ahead of the pictures of real photographers. So, last week, the German artist published a message on his website that he was giving up the award and the prize – a Sony camera. In an open letter to the organizers of the contest, the artist explained that all this was an experiment and an attempt to speed up the conversation about this topic. “Thank you for choosing my image and making it a historic moment, as it is the first image created by artificial intelligence to win a prestigious international photography competition. How many of you knew or suspected that this image was created by artificial intelligence?” , – Eldagsen wrote in an open letter to the competition organizers. He also added: “Images created by artificial intelligence and photography should not compete with each other in such a competition. Their essence is different. Artificial intelligence is not photography. Therefore, I will not accept the award.” References to Eldagsen’s work have disappeared from the competition’s website. Screenshot Eldagsen said the incident showed the art world was ill-prepared for the rapid development of artificial intelligence imaging technologies that have exploded this year with projects like Midjourney and DALL-E. “I applied as a cheeky monkey to find out if the contests are ready for AI images. They are not. We, the photography world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what no,” he stated. In turn, the World Photography Organization did not make any public statement about the refusal of one of the winners from the award. However, all mention of Eldagsen’s work has disappeared from the competition website. Previously, a series of photos by Ukrainian photographer Sasha Maslov from the settlements of Kyiv region destroyed by the Russian occupiers made it to the shortlist of the Sony World Photography Awards 2023 competition. However, these works did not bring him victory. Read also: Ukrainian photographer Yevhen Maloletka won the World Press Photo
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